A Cold Spot
by BlacKat-GrenEys
Summary: Sanji wakes up in the hospital to broken bones, stitches, and bruising. He can't remember what happened between getting dressed for a Halloween party with Zoro and waking up. But something is off with the way Zoro looks at him and how the doc and nurse are treating him.


**So you guys may hate me for this ending, but I want you to know that it is unfinished. Yes I know it says it is complete and that's cause it is, but I had a lot more planned for this piece, I just wasn't able to get around to doing it in time before I had to post it. So one day I will add to it and properly finish it. Don't know when that will be though...**

**On another note, this is unbetaed. I did not have time for my usual beta to read through it. So any mistakes you see are all mine and if there are to many, please tell me what they are so I can fix them. **

**Thanks and Enjoy!**

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><p>Beep… Beep… Beep… Beep…<p>

Sanji's conscious slowly rose from his sleep to the constant beeping noise floating through the room. A room that wasn't his and Zoro's. The smells of antiseptic and cleaning products rather than Zoro's musk and Sanji's spices. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong and Sanji couldn't focus on anything but the beeping and last remnants of a scary dream he could barely remember in order to figure it out. What is that beeping? And where is it coming from? His eyes fought to open, too heavy with exhaustion. Lifting his arm was futile in the wake of his weighted mind. His consciousness began retreating again, forcing its way back down where it didn't have to think, to feel, to acknowledge that it's in an unfamiliar room with an unfamiliar smell. Sanji lets it fall, enveloping his mind back into the comfort of black and dreams, thinking he hears Zoro whisper that he won't leave, not yet, softly in his ear.

The next time Sanji's mind stirs back to the world, the only thing that runs through it is pain, immense, indescribable pain. Worse than when he had to get surgery on his spin. Worse than when Zoro accidentally sliced up his thigh. Sanji couldn't place how bad this pain was on his scale, but if he used Zoro's it would be up there with when the bastard Mihawk left him for dead in that god awful alleyway behind The Baratie. The fuckwit didn't even call for help, he just waited for his friends to find him. The asshole.

Sanji's mind began processing the pain, telling him which parts of his body hurt, which were just sore, and which parts hurt by association to ones beside it. He could feel a heavy cast confining his left leg as well as his left arm, multiple stitches and cuts everywhere above his waist, and what felt like a bandage wrapped securely around his pounding head.

The beeping noise filled his ears letting him know that he has got to be in a hospital, again. He and the marimo had finally just freaking left it a week before Halloween, why the fuck was he back. The better question though was what happened to him to get him back. He knew he was hurt, he felt that. He knew some things were broken, he felt that too, but he couldn't for the life of him remember why he was there. And if he was hurt this bad, what happened to Zoro? Knowing the shithead he most likely was sitting in the room with him all bandaged up and not listening to whatever the docs were saying, again.

Sanji felt himself wanting to sigh at the thought, but the pain wasn't allowing him. They had really done this too many times by now.

He struggled to open his eyes, to take a look at the hospital room he's lying in to decide if they have been in this one before or not. His eyes cracked open a smidge before closing again at the light shining through the room. The curtains, or shades, must be open, Sanji thought as he opened his lids again and adjusting himself to the sunlight.

Once his eyes were able to handle it he could see that, yes, the shades were pulled up. Stupid doctors and nurses thinking its ok to have those open for recovering patients. As much as Sanji loves the sun, he really doesn't like it when it comes to hospital rooms. Zoro must be pitching a fit if it's the same in his room.

Sanji dragged his eyes from the window to the chair between him and the sunlight streaming through. No marimo. So the fucker must actually be in his own room for once, Sanji thought as he pulled his eyes around to see the rest of the room. But there in the darkest corner of the room, leaning against the wall beside the closed door, stood Zoro. Dressed in his stupid Halloween costume that he insisted on wearing to the party they were planning on going to, but which, Sanji realizes, they probably didn't make it to.

Zoro's green robe and haramaki aren't hanging off of him like they were when Sanji last saw him. They are fitted carefully onto his stomach and shoulders like he took time to make himself look good, and theres a red sash tied around his hips holding up his swords that wasn't and weren't there before. So either the marimo went to a lot of trouble getting dressed in his costume for the hospital, which Sanji knows he would never have brought, or been allowed to bring, his swords into in the place, or Sanji has lost some time between getting dressed and waking up. But he should have realized that since, well, he is in a hospital with broken bones he doesn't remember getting.

"Mari-" Sanji barely got out the word before he fell into a coughing fit, throat dry and aching, he felt like he was about to cough out a lung. His ribs protested the strain informing Sanji that they weren't broken, but maybe fractured or strained. When he finally got his breathing under control and was able to swallow down some of his saliva to help calm his throat, he tried calling his lover over from the corner again. "Marimo," Sanji's voice was hoarse but he managed to get out what he wanted to ask, "what the fuck happened? You alright?"

Sanji couldn't tell what expression flitted over the moss heads face, but he could see the tightness and tension sitting across Zoro's shoulders as he took a couple steps forward into the light from the window. When his green hair shown in the sun, Sanji was able to asses what might be going on in Zoro's thick skull, but for the first time in a very long time Zoro lifted the stone wall he kept inside himself and made sure nothing slipped past as he stepped up to Sanji's bedside.

Face passive and almost stone cold Zoro looked down on Sanji and uncrossed his arms from his chest to let the right one land on his swords and the left hang by his thigh. His unscarred eye moved across Sanji's face and down his body before breaking his facade. No one would have been the wiser, but Sanji could see it. Zoro's eyes lost the hard edge to them, his mouth softened just a little, and as odd as it was his scarred eye smoothed out in relaxation.

"Marimo," Sanji felt the smallest of hesitations in his voice as he watched his lover examine him, as he watched his partner break down before him. This wasn't like Zoro, the thought raced through Sanji's mind, pulling him up into a sitting position even though the pain was almost unbearable.

Zoro shifted just a little like he was going to help Sanji up, or push him back down, but stopped before he moved to do so. Instead he took a step back as his face softened more than Sanji had ever seen it, at least not since Zoro vowed through tears that he would defeat Mihawk one day.

Sanji wanted to wrap his lover in his arms and tell him it would be alright, that he would heal and they would be back to their normal selves in due time. But before he could open his mouth Zoro whispered something under his breath too quietly for Sanji to pick up over his pounding head and heart.

Zoro must have realized because he spoke again, louder but with his voice cracking on most of his words. "We were in an accident shit cook." The endearing nickname Zoro used was filled with emotion stronger than Sanji was used to hearing coming from his lumber headed boyfriend. "A semi smacked into us from the passenger's side," Zoro went on, voice cracking more as Sanji watched tears begin to form in the pale grey eye watching him. "You almost… you almost didn't make it…. and I-"

Zoro was cut off as a nurse wandered into the room, obviously not realizing she was interrupting something. Zoro stepped out of the way retreating back to the wall at the end of Sanji's bed.

The nurse saw Sanji glaring at her for interrupting and immediately put on a smile for him, albeit a sad one. "You're awake." Her statement was unnecessary, but Sanji nodded in return to her and put a small smile on his face for her so that she knew he understood her interruption wasn't taken too harshly. Casting his gaze back on Zoro, Sanji listened to the nurse as she rambled on about his injuries and how she had to go get his doctor to explain some things to him.

Sanji didn't much care for listening to her, he could feel all that was wrong and he knew how to take care of himself, he just wanted to finish his conversation with Zoro. "I'm sorry miss," he broke off her speech as she checked over his vitals one last time before going to fetch the doctor. "Could you please leave us alone to finish our conversation." Sanji took his eyes off Zoro in front of him to look at the nurse with a kind smile adorning his features. It was returned with brows furrowed and a pitting look within the nurses eyes.

"I'll be right back with the doctor." Her eyes swept the room before leaving it, passing right over Zoro to land back on Sanji.

He didn't miss the way her eyes looked right through Zoro or the way she looked at him with confusion, something was wrong and Sanji needed to figure it out before the doc arrived.

Looking back to Zoro, Sanji let out a sigh as he relaxed into the pillow behind him letting the tension fall out of his shoulders and body. "So," Sanji didn't know where to begin. Ask the big questions about what was going on or the small ones about how Zoro was and if he got any injuries in the apparent crash they were in.

Zoro didn't say anything, just returned Sanji's cocked eyebrow back to him in the silent communication they had, that Zoro was gonna wait for Sanji to speak first. So Sanji did, "Marimo, you hurt?"

The question had Zoro's steel look slide back over his features, cutting Sanji off from reading the swordsmans body language or facial features. Sanji couldn't ever remember a time in their four years together that Zoro would give him that face more than once in a couple hours. Sure Sanji may have gotten them more than once a day but they never lasted long and always ended in the marimo apologizing, but this… this was something Sanji had never experienced with his partner before and it scared him like nothing ever had.

"Marim-" Sanji never got to even finish saying his nickname before the doc and the nurse opened the door and strolled on in.

"I see you're finally awake Mr. Noir." The doctor greeted him with one corner of his lips pulled up on his face and tension radiating through his shoulders, neck, and jaw. "How are you feeling?"

There was no other word for it, Sanji was pissed. This guy walks into his room, interrupts his conversation for the second time and wants to know how the fuck he is. "What the fuck do you think?" Sanji snaps not even trying to calm himself down. "I'm fucking hurt, in pain, and you guys won't give me five minutes to talk to my partner about what happened."

The docs face crumbled when Sanji finished, his eyebrows knitted together and a frown formed across his lips. "Mr. Noir," he began, talking like he was going to deliver some bad news and not sure how Sanji was going to take it. "We are the only people in this room with you at the moment."

And there it was, news Sanji couldn't, wouldn't, believe falling from the docs mouth. Sanji shook his head not caring that it made his headache worse or that the nurse and doc looked like they wanted to strap him down. "But he is right there!" He lifted his arm, while it protested the entire way up, to point at Zoro still leaning on the wall across from him. "He is standing right there in his stupid green haramaki and robe! He even has his fucking swords! So don't you dare tell me that-," Sanji cut himself off when he turned to look at Zoro before him. His marimo was crying. Two silent tears ran down his cheek to his jaw, dropping to land on the floor. "Marimo," Sanji didn't know that look, the one Zoro wore. His face, his features had all fallen. The pain and sadness in Zoro's eyes was something Sanji never wanted to see, and he didn't want to imagine what put it there. "Zoro," Sanji's voice broke on the one word, the one he rarely ever said, the one that proved how much he loved his green haired bastard. But that one word broke Zoro more than he already was. He crumbled to the floor falling below the bed frame so Sanji could no longer see him. "ZORO." Sanji shot out of bed, tumbling to the floor and hissing when his broken arm and leg smacked the tiles beneath him. "Zoro!" Sanji tried to crawl to him while fighting the nurse and doctor who were trying to put him back in his bed. "Zoro!" Sanji's arm reached out, he was finally able to touch him, but instead of landing on a warm elbow his hand passed through a cold spot distorting Zoro's arm and body for a second before it came back to itself.

"...Zoro…" Sanji's voice was small as the doctor and the nurse maneuvered him back onto the hospital bed, warning him not to do that again, but Sanji couldn't hear them. Didn't want to hear them. "What… what's wrong with him?"

"Mr. Noir," The doctor placed his hand on Sanji's shoulder. "The man you were in the car with that night, a Mr. Roronoa. He… he didn't make it. He died on impact."

The words didn't process into Sanji's mind. Dead. No. Zoro couldn't be dead. No way. But… but Sanji's hand passed right through him, so… "But he is right there." Sanji didn't say this to the doc, he said it to himself, because there was no way his… his marimo was gone when he was sitting right there on the floor crying onto his bent arm across his lifted knees. "He's right there. I need to comfort him. He's… Zoro."

Zoro lifted his head from his arms, his eye red and slightly puffy. He looked like a mess. "Doc's right, Sanji." His head fell back to this arms, no longer crying, but hiding from the tears he saw running down Sanji's own cheeks. "I'm just a ghost haunting your heart now."


End file.
